And so, before I knew what was happening, we’d decided to visit the gym of a certain middle school on Sunday night─but before we set out, I was going to need a little work.
As I’ve already mentioned a number of times, I─that is, Mayumi Dojima, Yubiwa Academy, year 2, class B─dress as a boy on a daily basis, but since I do the dressing up myself, I can’t say the level of accuracy is very high.
I might look like a male student from a distance, but despite the slacks and the short hair, if you took a good look at me from close up you’d know I was a girl.
At the very least, it would be easier to tell that Mayumi Dojima is a girl than it would to tell that she’s a twisted, obstinate, gloomy grouch.
Therefore, when it came to marching into a danger zone as a member of the Pretty Boy Detective Club (the obvious danger of marching into Kamikazari Middle School as students of Yubiwa Academy aside, doing anything with the Pretty Boy Detective Club seemed plenty risky on its own), I needed to up the level of my drag game a little─er, a lot.
I had to get fixed up so no one would figure out I was actually a girl─and that meant the time had come for our resident costume artist to do his thing.
Sosaku the Artiste.
I needed to ask a favor of the child genius who maybe, or rather quite likely, still didn’t accept me as a member of the club─after all, he was the one who had managed to turn me into a boy for the first time in my life the other day.
Setting aside personal feelings, he at least seemed to accept me as raw material for his art, so on Sunday I arrived early at the art room and he helped me morph into a magnificent boy yet again.
His skill with makeup was astonishing and his touch with the barber’s shears worthy of amazement─wait, we’re not using a wig this time? We’re actually going to cut my hair? But, I already cut it pretty short myself, didn’t I?
After that, he gave me a set of “casual dress” clothes that he’d altered to fit me, or more likely, sewn from scratch─which more or less fit the image of “casual dress” I’d had in mind.
For a scion of the Yubiwa Foundation, they may have been more like loungewear, but for a commoner like me, they were nothing if not dress-up clothes.
Naturally, Yubiwa himself, as well as the other members of the club who trickled into the art room after us, were all wearing what I’d call party clothes rather than casual attire (most likely haute couture numbers pulled together by their exclusive stylist). Even Mr. Bare-Legs’ shorts looked more like something off the Paris runways than a casual item of clothing.
Together they amounted to such a technicolor rainbow that I felt like I’d go blind even with my glasses on─if this was “somewhat casual,” then I couldn’t wait to see their version of “informal” someday.
“Oho, young Dojima, you’ve been done up! And thanks to you, Sosaku looks quite pleased with himself. Ha ha ha, what a beautiful exchange between fellow members!”
The perpetually high-spirited Sotoin seemed to be in especially high spirits tonight─although only the gods knew if Yubiwa was actually feeling pleased with himself.
“Well lads, shall we? The Pretty Boy Detective Club is on the case! As always, let us be beautiful, let us be boys, and let us be detectives!”
“Sure,” “Yup,” “Yes, let’s,” answered the delinquent, Mr. Bare-Legs, and the councilman in turn─with the child genius following silently after them.
Every time I witnessed their harmonious teamwork, I couldn’t help feeling inferior, like there was no room for me to join in─but thanks to the artiste, I was a pretty boy for the moment, even if only on the surface.
Mayumi the Seer, she (he?) of the beautiful eyes.
So.
“And let us be a team,” I mumbled, as I accompanied them out the door.
✦ ✦ ✦
“As long as people talk about ‘exclusive economic zones,’ true friendship between nations’ll never exist.”
So said not some great man, but our school’s resident satirist─though considering that even middle school students have territories they forbid one another to enter, what can you really say about it?
But that night, the Pretty Boy Detective Club (myself included) barged calmly across the line separating the territory of the private Yubiwa Academy from that of the private Kamikazari Middle School.
Even disguised as a boy, my heart was pounding.
I felt like I was doing something much worse than sneaking onto the school roof in the middle of the night─not to mention that I was about to enter a middle school I didn’t even attend.
“H-Have you all been here before? I mean, inside Kamikazari Middle…”
Their bold attitude made me think one of their past cases must have involved such a thing, but I was wrong.
“Oh no, never,” replied Sakiguchi. “We’ve had some interactions with them in the past, it’s true, but this is our first time visiting the premises.”
Which meant that while these pretty boys may not have been curvaceous, they were certainly courageous─for my part, I was terrified about what might wait in store for us.
“Have no fear. I am still the president of the student council─and if I say I’m here to look into reports of unrest occurring near our school, they’ll believe me.”
The vice president used his trusted and powerful position in the official world with surprising savvy─although in terms of “unrest,” the Pretty Boy Detective Club caused plenty of it themselves.
“Ha ha ha. Relax, young Dojima. No one will give us any trouble. Unless being beautiful is a crime, that is!” The excited president completely ignored the vice president’s words.
I don’t know about beauty being a crime, but one reason he didn’t feel especially guilty sneaking into another middle school was probably that he traipsed around ours all the time like he owned the place, even though he was only in fifth grade.
“You seem to be having fun, too, Sosaku. Excellent. At this rate, we may just be lucky enough to witness one of your patented soft-shoe routines tonight!”
As far as I could tell, the child genius looked the same as always, but anyway…
A soft-shoe routine?
The child genius? Dancing??
Or was the president talking about Sosaku making him a pair of slippers?
“You’re talking about sneaking in, Dojima, but the gates are wide open. And I didn’t see a single car in the lot, so the dear teachers must’ve all gone home. You ask me, this feels like a warm welcome,” the delinquent announced, though I’m not sure if his confidence came from being a member of a detective organization or being part of the criminal underworld. Apparently, he’d been casually keeping an eye on our surroundings on the way in.
Well, we had been invited.
If the gate had been closed, that would have been the end of it─which would’ve been great, but then this book would never have been written. So we walked onto the grounds of that middle school that wasn’t ours, followed the map printed on the invitations, and arrived at Gymnasium #2.
According to some fairly plausible rumors circulating among the girls at our school, the inside of Kamikazari Middle should’ve resembled a drawing of hell, but actually, the row of buildings, the tidy flower beds, and even Gymnasium #2 were very clean and neat─rumors can be so unreliable.
As for the veracity of the rumors about the Pretty Boy Detective Club─well, for the present, I’ll withhold judgement.
“Looks like they’ve got curtains up so we can’t see what’s going on inside─guess our only choice is to head on in.”
Mr. Bare-Legs─who was bare-legged even in the middle of a near-winter night─actually sounded excited.
The boy with the beautiful legs liked to gambol, so maybe he liked to gamble, too.
Of course, if I felt like it (and took off my glasses) I could have looked through not just the heavy curtains but the walls themselves to see what was happening inside the gym, but there was no point in spoiling their fun.
We walked around to the front of the gym, reached for the steel doors that were shut as tight as the curtains─and.